


the only thing that is baked around here are the beans

by belladeum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Bad Cooking, Comedy, Gen, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, but although i am british and arthur is british and this is set in the uk, humantalia, i don't think this fic counts as british comedy, i had fun with some of the wordplay, lud makes a cameo, swear words are used so mind the language, there's a 'british comedy' tag, this isn't necessarily shippy hence both of the tags, yet another comedy revamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 11:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17827628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belladeum/pseuds/belladeum
Summary: "Did you not notice the almighty wailing above you or the acrid smoke? Who even toasts their bread using the grill? We have an appliance whose name, whose sole purpose is to toast bread. You may have heard of it – it’s called––” Francis breathed in deep and spoke with that breath, “––a toaster.”“I’m the fucker who set off the fire alarm with my awful cooking" AU. Exactly what it says on the tin. || Reupload. Written in 2014 ||





	the only thing that is baked around here are the beans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the49thname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the49thname/gifts).



> Written for the49thname as a christmas present way back in 2014. I fixed up some spelling and grammar, added a pinch of glitter, and now it's here for you to enjoy.

No, but you see – Arthur had to explain – baked beans on toast was perfectly acceptable. It was a staple. The simplest of things.  To deny it would be like… denying one’s own existence, perhaps? So, Arthur had to ask himself, as he stood in his pyjamas that still looked like something he should have but never quite really outgrew in his early teenage years, why should someone object to it so much?

“Ah, no, that isn’t… why I was objecting it.”

“Then why?” Arthur asked indignantly, scowling across every lean square inch of bloody fresher that he could find. He could do that. Freshers could do that to each other. There had to be a pecking order established, after all. And he was rather peckish at the moment.

“It’s because you set off the fucking fire alarm.” Teeth grated and politeness sharpened to a deadly point, barely even polite at this point, but Arthur didn’t so much as budge. He merely blinked pointedly. His hallmate, all waves and curls and flourishes and pompous bloody _French parfum_ was staring at him with a finely controlled posture, sending all the subtle signals one would not really expect from a Parisian, but his demeanour was more forthright. His anger was not as well controlled, and it did leak out. Oh yes, Arthur knew just how hard Francis had been trying to make a ~ _good first impression~_ and get on with everyone, but clearly he had yet to learn the most beautiful and arrogant truth that there were simply some people in the world you were destined to loathe upon meeting them. Perhaps loathe was harsh, since they’d never really spoken and Arthur would say it was difficult to apply such an extreme descriptor to such a tepid relationship, but Arthur did dislike him immensely. That’s just how fate worked.

Arthur didn’t really feel like replying, much preferring to wallow in the wisps of smoke yet to diffuse and in the rapidly growing tension that, if he prodded right, would snap like one of those shatter–resistant plastic rulers and Francis would feel the same betrayal he did as a child, but to be honest if he thought he was ever going to get a kind of civilised conversation or heartfelt apology from him he was plain daft.

Francis started tapping his foot angrily with the glare stubborn as Arthur’s own but not nearly as mastered and so not nearly as impressive – Arthur got the feeling Francis didn’t really glare, he wasn’t that sort of person; being a snob, he’d also never really had to glare, just peer down his nose with a look of mixed sympathy and pride. They were – infuriatingly – the same height, so Francis could not abuse this power here.

“Oh,” Arthur replied at last. “Did I?”

“If I have discourteously presumed something about the state of your hearing then please do inform me,” Francis said with a curling lip. “But since this does not appear to be the case I shall treat you like the dull city boy you are. You may be used to smoke and that disgusting smell, being from the bleak and smoggy excuse for a city that is London, but some of us prefer air we can breathe. We would also all prefer to _sleep_. You yourself look plenty tired.” He nodded to indicate Arthur’s red eyes and sagging knees – but hey he didn’t look like he’d stepped out of a fashion shoot or something himself either so he could just piss right off. Arthur flung a hand out at him lazily as if to bat him away like the annoying insect he was.

“Oh, like you’re one to talk.” Arthur snorted. “You’re from fucking Paris – spiderweb city of gaudy light shows.”

“My parental heritage is not my own, thank you very much. I lived in Chalônes-en-Champagne,” Francis tossed back his hair, triumphant. Arthur didn’t really know where that was but it sounded fancy and alcohol-related enough to be Paris Version Two: The Sequel Nobody Wanted.

“Yes and I may have been born at Chelsea and Westminster but I spent two years in Somerset with my dick of a father once I was old enough to walk and grew up in Newcastle with my shit of a brother so that’s that.”

“Oh.” Francis didn’t really say it so much as mutter it, and Arthur smirked. Deuce. Not preferred, but satisfactory nonetheless.

“It must be so difficult for you to figure out that we have regional accents, giving that yours just sound equally as obnoxious.”

Francis scowled, and Arthur thought for a moment maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He’d definitely lost the moral high ground for that one. Whatever.

The tinny buzzing of the halogen bar attached to the ceiling, with its shabby and cracking paint that had yet to be redone, probably for the last three consecutive years now, become more noticeable in the silence. Neither party knew what to say now. Arthur didn’t like awkward silences, and normally this wouldn’t qualify as awkward except Francis was looking at him strangely after a heated battle with no clear winner so Arthur could neither face him directly nor back away at the moment. He decided his toast should be attended to, now cold and a little soggy from the tomato sauce dripping onto the crumb-infested counter. They spread out like little stars, skittering around and falling from the slice as he picked it up.

Francis rolled his eyes.

Time for round two.

“What?” Arthur snapped.

“That food is _awful_. Why would you eat it?”

“It’s marvellous and I’m hungry and it’s quick and you eat beef raw like you’ve never heard of food poisoning.” Arthur rattled off his excuses machine-gun style munching his way through much less satisfying and more sticky beans on toast. He licked the edges of his mouth.

“It’s not; I wouldn’t know but I see no reason to disbelieve you; instant noodles are less disruptive but just as fast; and it’s not raw it’s just not incinerated.” Francis threw replies back at him. He rubbed at his arms, but it was not particularly cold. Probably just looking for something to do with his hands.

“Less ‘disruptive’?”

“Yes. Did you not notice the almighty wailing above you or the acrid smoke? Did you not hear our collective groans of dismay – I’m pretty sure Lovino threw something at his door, though it could have been Natalya, it was hard to tell through the swearing.”

“Whose swearing?”

“Mine. Into my pillow. Before I was elected to come out here turn off the alarm while you stood stirring your baked beans completely oblivious or uncaring to it all. Who even toasts their bread using the grill? We have an appliance whose name, whose sole purpose is to toast bread. You may have heard of it – it’s called––” Francis breathed in deep and spoke with that breath, “–– _a toaster_.”

“Oh my, really?” Arthur widened his eyes, full of awe and wonder. “That’s incredible! I had absolutely no bloody idea! How far modern technology has come! Forgive me, the North is about a century behind, and we’ve only just discovered the Walkman. Who could have known the French were so advanced and logical? Can it toast you, too?”

Francis scowled. “Why of course.”

“Good. Then stand still while I ram your face into it.” He grinned a lopsided grin.

Francis threw his arms up, finally finding use for them, and groaned. He then rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked back to Arthur scornfully.

“So why did you feel the need to wake us with your bad and impractical ‘cooking’?”

“Because the toaster doesn’t fucking work.” It was true. Try all he might Arthur hadn’t been able to make it glow. He’d even checked the wiring in the plug, falling over a lot and cursing in the process. His legs were being a little un-cooperative this fine evening.

Francis looked at him solidly in the eye. Arthur held his gaze and refused to blink, not even as his reddish eyes watered as he followed Francis round the table. The Frenchman stopped and bent his back slowly, achingly, to come level with the toaster. He looked back and forth between them, with an expression so deadpan Arthur was tempted to laugh. Francis then, with expert precision and co-ordination, extended his arm to the wall and flicked the mains switch.

Arthur gulped.

Francis then, with a soulless grin, pushed down the lever on the toaster and opened his mouth in the same mock awe Arthur had done as an orange glow appeared from behind the metal mesh.

Arthur felt his face burn like the appliance working pointlessly across the room, cheeks flooding red with shame so acute that he felt a little breathless and could feel the heat in his ears.

“You’re right. It’s completely broken.”

Arthur turned away and finished off his toast bitterly.

“What? Nothing to say?” Francis smirked from behind him. And Arthur snapped like a regular ruler, hard, fast, and spewing fragments of less harmful toast crust from his mouth as he turned, the remaining parts lodging in his throat and he choked in his desire to retort quickly. After a moment of aggressive coughing he was near shouting.

“I have everything to say you stupid pair of bollocks! This all started because you have some personal vendetta against baked beans and centuries’ worth of instilled hatred for us English! And as for _you_ , I––”

At that point a head poked out from behind a door in the hallway, spotted only after the clearing of the throat and the fact that neither blonde had thought to close the kitchen door.

“Are you quite done? Some of us would like to sleep.”

“Like it matters to you, Ludwig,” Francis called out. He shuffled over to the doorway, and Arthur could only just see Ludwig in the gloom over Francis’ shoulder. “You’re either up working late as normal because you’re insane, or you’re skyping your sweetheart. I’m assuming you have great courage to ask us to keep down while you yourself are so preoccupied – or maybe that’s why you won’t leave the safe haven of your closed door?”

Ludwig, Arthur could only assume, turned red in the face and retreated. He didn’t know because he wasn’t looking at the time, but that’s what Ludwig did: turn red whenever you mentioned his boyfriend or implied anything about their relationship that would be considered common for lovers. Not that Arthur cared.

Arthur felt around the counter for more toast and was disappointed to find he had consumed the slices he’d made. There were still some left-over _very_ baked beans though, so he picked up the pot and made to saunter over to his cutlery drawer. Francis grimaced as he did so, making it as difficult as possible to navigate the kitchen by standing in his way and forcing Arthur to barge past him, knocking shoulders and nearly dropping his saucepan. He arrived after staggering back and forth for half a minute and when he did he flipped Francis the bird over his shoulder.

“Fuck off,” he spat. He grumbled as he slammed the pot at the side and began rifling through his drawers for the right spoon – had to feel right to eat baked beans with, that’s for sure, and over the din he could hear Francis’ coughing and exaggerated nasal voice. A quick glance over his shoulder explained it as Francis was pinching his nose.

“You smell disgusting – like smoke and bland English food and… What _is_ that?”

“Probably the smell of your own shit talk.”

“No – it’s vile whatever it is.”

“Exactly.” Arthur made a show of grinning as he gulped down the remainder of the food, scraping it off of the inside loudly. God he was starving. He raised his brows at Francis, who offered no retaliatory retort, and smirked with lips generously lathered in tomato sauce. Francis made a face of disgust.

“You English are so _charming_. I’m so glad I decided to spend an absurd amount of money studying abroad.”

“An’ you French––” He swallowed. “ _Ahh,_ you French are incredibly jealous of this fact. Don’t worry, I understand.” Arthur mirrored Francis as they pulled faces and mocked each other’s speaking as petty children. Arthur had already won against the snob though so he didn’t give a flying fuck how immature it may seem. He waved his hands and pouted and fluttered his lashes all prim and pompous as Francis and glared when Francis pulled his nose up at him (as if he could talk with a crooked hook smack bang on the centre of his face!) and placed three fingers above his eyes - jealous of his magnificent brows too, no doubt.

“ _Eugh_ , the room is going to smell awful all night. We can’t exactly open the window at this hour.” Francis ignored Arthur, much to his newly found chagrin, and began grumbling over the messiness of the kitchen and about having to woken up and about the annoying smell which Arthur thought was just some huge exaggeration on his part. It was not at all that bad.

“Ugh, and the oven is going to stink too.” He coughed. “You’ve made a carbonised mess of the grill and the counters and guess who’s on the rota this week, hm?” Arthur had no clue but he presumed it was Francis. He couldn’t remember how to read properly right now it just didn’t feel right. Besides, he was still hungry and that was top priority – not whoever was on the rota for cleanup duty, which now sounded rather ridiculous in Arthur’s head. He almost giggled; almost, because it came out as a snort against his fist.

Francis coughed again.

“Can you honestly not smell that? Is your nose just saturated with that blandness? Or did your cooking destroy your tastebuds? Or perhaps you never _had_ a sense of taste, and that’s why you can bear the unbearable?”

Arthur stuck his tongue out.

“I’ve got six tastes, the first being _good taste_ – unlike you.”

“No but what you do have is some interesting choice of deodorant.” Francis leered at him. “One could say it was a _bad taste_ in deodor––” Francis fell short. He cocked his head. Arthur copied. Francis frowned, lips upturned and brows furrowing just a little as he stared past Arthur.

“What.”

Francis blinked and stepped with his gangly legs over to Arthur leaning into him like some kind of predatory creature.

“Wait… is that cannabis? I’ve never–– is that what the smell is?” Was he smelling him? Francis’ eyes narrowed. A cat, perhaps, or a bird of prey. Certainly could enter a vulture beauty contest without suspicion, that’s for sure. Arthur spat out loud and began laughing triumphant, and Francis groaned in disgust and reeled backwards, wiping at his facing then grimacing at his sleeve.

“ _Ugh._ ” Francis folded his arms with his face wrinkled in disgust and anger and discomfort merged into general displeasure. “I thought so.”

“ _What?_ ” Arthur whined.

“It’s weed, isn’t it?” His voice was deadpan.

After a moment of silence Arthur snorted. And then blinked.

“What?”

“Arthur. Please. Are you high right now? Please let me not be talking to a man without his senses. Not that you have any, but…” Francis began rubbing his brows with a look of dismay and resignation. He looked ready to walk out of the situation, which… meant ultimate victory? The battle and war were surely Arthur’s to claim.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re defensive, though.” Arthur may have been folding his arms and rolling his eyes and refusing to meet Francis’ eyes but that didn’t imply guilt, no. “And your eyes are red and you’re hungry. What’s that strange phrase you English use…”

“It’s called ‘munchies’, and no, I’m not fucking high. Do you see any weed hanging around? A themed t-shirt, or a joint? Any brownies?”

“No, but you do drink a lot of tea. How much did you have?”

Arthur flushed.

“I’m not high. Although _if_ I was, and only _if_ , that would explain why Peter looks so ill.”

“Peter?”

“Rabbit. On your dressing gown,” Arthur stressed each word separately and jabbed a finger at a space a little way over Francis’ shoulder, although intending to point towards the small figure embroidered onto the chest area of the dressing gown. His arm wavered in the air. He nodded as Francis looked down and back up again, turning the fluffy polyester upwards to see better.

“ _Oh_. _Petit lapin_ , was it? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well – what, no! No it’s not just ‘ _lapin_ ’ you tosser that’s my childhood right there and his name is ‘Peter’, not _petit_!” Arthur glowered and Francis shrugged, nonchalant.

“I just bought it because I thought it looked cute. Quaint. But my apologies for affronting you. Why does Peter Rabbit look ill?”

“S’green and wobbly. Kinda like you.”

“Green.” Francis raised a brow.

“Mm.” As if he couldn’t see it.

Francis opened his mouth, stopped short, hanging like a goldfish, then sighed. His shoulders sagged and he dropped his head to his chest.

“You’re so _high_ and that is why you’re craving beans on toast and from the looks of the mess you’ve emptied your cupboard of chocolate digestives.”

“…No.” Arthur closed his cupboard door.

The light flickered above them and then Francis started snickering, and Arthur frowned as the man clutched at his chest and burst into a fit of muddled and restrained laughter.

“What’s so fucking funny,” he demanded.

“You’re stoned and have no idea how to cook and you have no food! Dear me, is this your first time? Did you try tea, it didn't kick in, and so you smoked some and now--”

“What. No, that would be ridiculous – I mean. Uhm.” Arthur coughed very loudly. He could turn this around somehow, he was sure of it. He just had to beat the Frenchman at his own game. He just-– “Yes.”

Francis smirked.

Arthur stared at his feet with ferocity he could not put into words to launch at the moron standing not three feet away from him. The silence of shameful defeat hurt his ears. Francis should fucking say something and gloat over his fucking victory.

“Hey, Arthur.” Twat.

“What.” Arthur looked up bitterly. Francis had rolled his sleeves up and was starting to push some of the scattered cutlery and Lovino’s not yet washed plates to one side. He looked over to Arthur with a small and genuine smile.

“Shall I… cook you something edible?”

Arthur sighed, long and belligerent.

“Yeah alright.”


End file.
